Interview: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard - A famous double act

WHEN Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard started rehearsing Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in New York's East Village, they were surprised, marginally flattered and mildly annoyed to find that a phalanx of paparazzi had staked out the theatre, flashbulbs at the ready.

Then they learned that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who had taken up residence nearby, were regulars at the coffee shop in the theatre's lobby and were the photographers' true quarry.

"They actually had nothing to do with us," Sarsgaard says with an embarrassed laugh.

"But," Gyllenhaal adds, "they were like, 'All right, as long as you're here…'"

"Two for the price of one," Sarsgaard says. "Awesome."

In the constellation of Hollywood couples who fascinate and transfix, Peter and Maggie are minor lights, their appeal driven not by exotic trappings (private planes, bodyguards, baby photos for sale) but by career paths and indie credentials that have defined them as actors first, celebrities third or maybe fifth.

Over lunch at a trattoria near their home in Brooklyn, Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard paw affectionately at each other's collars and complete each other's sentences. They juggle their work schedules to accommodate their two-year-old daughter, Ramona, and grumble about carrying strollers down subway staircases.

On closer inspection, though, that veneer of mundanity starts to unravel: the couple, who have been together since 2001 and are not married, can often arrange their work schedules so that one of them is free to attend to their child. They also happen to make their living in front of millions of people, and when they travel to work in Montreal, they hang out with rock band Arcade Fire.

This makes them noticeable enough around New York that they attract attention even for routine conduct – Gyllenhaal ignited an online controversy in 2007 after being snapped by a photographer breast-feeding Ramona in public – which has instilled in them a self-consciousness, as individuals and as a couple.

So there is an added frisson to their collaboration in Uncle Vanya, one of the rare instances when the two will appear together in a professional capacity.

Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal say they would work together more often if there were more low-risk opportunities like this play, at a small off-Broadway theatre, the Classic Stage Company, with an accommodating director.

"It is only about the experience of doing it, and with your lover; why would we engage in anything any other way than that?" Sarsgaard says. "Why would we join forces commercially? It would be…"

"Kind of disgusting," Gyllenhaal says, finishing his thought.

Their individual CVs explain why the prospect of their acting together is so intriguing. Sarsgaard, 37, is coming off a widely praised Broadway revival of Chekhov's The Seagull, in which he played Trigorin opposite Kristin Scott Thomas as Arkadina, to add to a repertory of reserved yet sympathetic characters in movies such as Shattered Glass, Kinsey and Garden State.

Gyllenhaal, 31, who was last seen on cinema screens in the summer blockbuster The Dark Knight (playing Rachel Dawes, a role she inherited from Katie Holmes), has her own strong tradition of playing astonishingly raw and unglamorous characters, in films including Sherrybaby and Secretary, and plays such as Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul.

Thus, some coincidence – and some convincing – was required for them to come together in Uncle Vanya. Last summer Brian Kulick, the artistic director of the Classic Stage Company, began assembling the production, hiring the veteran Chekhov interpreter Austin Pendleton to direct and Denis O'Hare, a Tony Award winner to play the titular misanthrope.

Finding an actress to play Yelena, the young married beauty who inconveniently attracts the affections of Vanya and the melancholy country doctor Astrov, was a months-long process. It was only after another actress turned down the role that Kulick turned to Gyllenhaal.

It was she who suggested Sarsgaard for the role of Astrov, a suggestion that took the play's creative team by surprise. Pendleton recalls: "I said, 'But he's in The Seagull'. I didn't even know Maggie and Peter were together."

Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal have acted together only once before, in the 2007 short film High Falls. In that movie, directed by Andrew Zuckerman, a friend of the couple, they played a husband and wife who jeopardise their relationship when they each reveal crucial secrets to the same confidant.

The project was not quite their Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but Gyllenhaal recalls making the film as a taxing experience. She was about seven months pregnant with Ramona when High Falls was shot. "I didn't have an artistic mind at that time," she says. "I hated the feeling of not having the energy to have a point of view."

Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal wanted the Uncle Vanya roles, but they faced a final hurdle: securing childcare for Ramona.

But eventually the two were able to work out a complex baby-sitting system that involved a nanny, Sarsgaard's parents, Gyllenhaal's best friend, and her mother, the screenwriter Naomi Foner. "My mom kept saying, 'Michelle Obama's mom is going to the White House with them. It's fine,'" Gyllenhaal says.

By the time they agreed to do Uncle Vanya it was December, and previews were just four weeks away. That left them little time before rehearsal to pore over the nuances of their roles, but both Sarsgaard and Gyllenhaal were willing to admit – if only up to a point to a reporter – that they saw certain kinships with their characters.

Like Astrov, Sarsgaard says: "It is very possible that I could have ended up on 80 acres of land by myself, and fallen in love at a distance with a gorgeous woman I could never have been with."

Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, says she could relate to the undulating tides of scrutiny that Yelena endures from other characters. "You have some people saying, 'You are a gorgeous woman,' in the same breath as, 'Can you please not talk anymore?'" She adds: "It's like going on the internet."

They are also aware that there will be many theatregoers who come to see Uncle Vanya because of them – and they are happy to use the preconceptions of such spectators to their advantage.

"Those expectations are probably awesome for watching the play," Sarsgaard says. "It probably fills in an enormous amount that could be lost, and makes each moment where we might interact seem significant, beyond what it should be."

Their Uncle Vanya co-stars say that by ceding the limelight to the celebrity couple in their ranks they will be repaid in other ways. "In this economic time there's a limited amount of people out there wanting to see theatre," Denis O'Hare says. "What a great boon for us, to have people who have a profile like that, to attract people to come see us."

There is also the heightened tension imposed by the design of the play: most of the interactions between Astrov and Yelena in Acts I and II are brief, glancing near-misses. It is not until Act III that the two characters truly collide, in a heated scene in which Astrov aggressively confronts Yelena with his romantic feelings for her.

It may be satisfying for the audience to see Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard finally confront each other, but the actors say it was a scene they have struggled with.

"We have never, ever done this one scene without one of us dropping a line," Gyllenhaal says.

"Usually just one of us, though," Sarsgaard says, pointing to Gyllenhaal, who laughs.

"In some ways," she says, "that scene is about my completely relinquishing control, giving into him completely. And so I do. And sometimes I can't remember my lines."

Ultimately, Pendleton says, there was little instruction he could give the actors in this scene. "I'm not going to tell two people who live together how to work out a physical seduction," he says. "That's just ridiculous."

Pendleton says the couple have already brought a fresh take to Uncle Vanya with their "infinitely exploratory" acting process, which he explains: "You don't make decisions until you absolutely have to. You just try everything, well into previews. Because of that I think they've inspired the whole group."

It remains to be seen if this period spent performing in Uncle Vanya will make them more comfortable with their grade of celebrity status. Gyllenhaal says that she can foresee a time when the couple's desire to protect Ramona's privacy and lead a more domestic existence will compel them to leave New York. "Both of us crave a quieter lifestyle lately," she says. "We would probably like to move somewhere greener."

Eventually, they say, they could envision themselves acting onstage together again – perhaps in Chekhov's Three Sisters, playing Masha and Vershinin, another tempestuous literary couple.

But those fantasies will have to wait for several months at least, while Gyllenhaal dives back into film projects and Sarsgaard tends to Ramona for a while. ("The tables have been turned," Sarsgaard says.)

Should Uncle Vanya merely prove a once-in-a-lifetime, let's-never-do-that-again occurrence, the two say it has nonetheless been constructive for their relationship.

"I think you call me a genius in the play, right?" Sarsgaard asks Gyllenhaal.

"A couple times," she gamely replies.

"Now that she's got that straight in her head, we're cementing it in there," Sarsgaard says. "I feel like that will give me another five years of clear sailing."